The harmonious development of urban rail transit, underground space engineering, and social economy is the key to regional sustainable development. Based on synergetic theory, this paper constructs the coupling coordination evaluation system of “rail transport-social economy” composite system at the scale of a city cluster. With this system, the coupling and coordinated development pattern and characteristics of “rail transit-social economy” in the Yangtze River Delta city cluster from 2002 to 2020 were analyzed. The paper makes a horizontal comparison with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster and the Pearl River Delta city cluster, as well as analyzes the differences in development and existing problems, and puts forward policy suggestions for rail and urban underground space development. The results show that: (1) The rail transit of 11 cities in the Yangtze River Delta shows a “step by step” development pattern. That is “national central city, provincial city, second-tier city, third-tier city, etc.”, accompanied by periodic changes of coupling and coordination degree. In addition, there is also the phenomenon of unbalanced development within the region; (2) From 2002 to 2020, the development of rail transit in the three city clusters shows a situation of “the overall supply is lacking and lags behind the social economy for a long time”. Among them, the Pearl River Delta city cluster has the most serious lags. Multi-channel financing, speeding up the construction of the rail transit scale according to local conditions, and improving operating efficiency are considered to be the keys to solve this problem; (3) In general, the coupling between rail transit and the social economy in the Yangtze River Delta city cluster is better than that in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster and the Pearl River Delta city cluster, but the coordination is at a slight disadvantage.

Geopolymers can be used as a thermally insulated material because of their considerable porosity, whereas the combined effect of various modifying agents on their heat-insulating properties remains unexplored. Here, orthogonal experiments were carried out to evaluate the thermal insulation performance of fly ash geopolymer modified by phenolic resin, silica aerogel, and hydrogen peroxide. Moreover, variance analysis and range analysis were applied to estimate the influence of modifying agents on the thermal insulation performance of the geopolymer. The results demonstrate that the thermal conductivity of fly ash geopolymer significantly reduces (from 0.48 W/m·K to 0.12 W/m·K) due to the combined effect of the three modifying agents. Based on the variance analysis and range analysis, the optimum thermal conductivity ultimately reaches 0.08 W/m·K via a best composition scheme of the three modifying agents. Moreover, phenolic resin can facilitate the formation of a network structure and increase the porosity of micron pores (>1 μm). Hydrogen peroxide can be decomposed into O₂ in an alkaline environment and leave large-diameter pores (>1 μm) during curing. Some silica aerogel is embedded in the geopolymer matrix as microspheres with extremely low thermal conductivity, whereas the rest of the silica aerogel may react with the alkali activator to form water, and subsequently leaves pores (>1 μm) after evaporation of water during the curing. In addition, a newly modified Maxwell–Euchen model using iterative calculation and considering the Knudsen effect (pores of micron or even nanometer scale) is proposed and validated by the experimental data. The foamed geopolymer in this research can be used as a reference for building insulation layer design. This research unravels phenolic resin-, silica aerogel-, and hydrogen peroxide-influenced thermal insulation mechanisms of geopolymer that may have impacts on deployment of a thermally insulating material in the construction field.

Seasonally frozen ground regions occupy approximately 55% of the exposed land surface in the Northern Hemisphere, and frost heave is the common global problem in seasonally frozen soil areas. Frost heave induces uneven deformation of ground and damages railways, road paving, and buildings. How to mitigate frost heave is the most important technical issue in this field that has provoked great interest. Here, using freezing experiments, we investigate the effect of anionic polyacrylamide (APAM) polymer on frost susceptible soil. The results demonstrate a so-far undocumented inhibition of frost heave by APAM in freezing soil, namely APAM (tested at concentrations from 0.0 wt% to 0.60 wt%) slows down the frost heave by a factor of up to 2.1 (since 0.60 wt% APAM can decrease frost heave from 8.56 mm to 4.14 mm in comparison to the control experiment). Moreover, it can be observed that the maximum water content near the frozen fringe decreased from 53.4% to 31.4% as the APAM content increased from 0.0 wt% to 0.60 wt%, implying a mitigated ice lens growth. Hydrogen bonding between APAM and soil particles triggers an adsorption mechanism that accumulates soil particles, and thus can potentially inhibit the separation and growth of the ice lens. Moreover, the residue of APAM due to hydrogen bonding-induced adsorption in the pores of granular media may narrow seepage channels (capillary barriers) and provide an unfavourable condition for water migration. The use of APAM can also increase the viscosity of the solution, which causes a greater water migration resistance. This research provides new insights into APAM-influenced frost heave (introducing APAM into the soil can induce bridging adsorption between APAM polymer segments and a particle surface), can enable engineers and researchers to utilise chemical improvement design and to consider suitable actions (e.g., by injecting APAM solution into a frost susceptible soil or using APAM-modified soil to replace the frost susceptible soil) to prevent frost heave from having a negative impact on traffic roads and buildings in cold regions.

This study focuses on the renovation and construction of compressed air energy storage chambers within abandoned coal mine roadways. The transient mechanical responses of underground gas storage chambers under a cycle are analyzed through thermal-solid coupling simulations. These simulations highlight changes in key parameters such as displacement, stress, and temperature within the chamber group during the loading and unloading processes of compressed air energy storage. It is found that within a cycle, the small circular chamber experiences the most significant deformation, with an average peak displacement of 0.24 mm, followed by the large circular chamber and horseshoe-shaped tunnels. The small circular chamber exhibits maximum tensile and compressive stresses. Therefore, special attention in engineering practice should be paid to the long-term safety and stability of small circular tunnels, and the stability of horseshoe-shaped tunnels should be also carefully considered. The findings from this study offer some insights for theoretical support and practical implementation in the planning, design, construction, and operation of high-pressure underground gas storage chambers for compressed air energy storage.

An oscillating heat pipe (OHP) is an effective heat transfer device for the thermal management of electronic devices. However, the heat transfer mechanism of the OHP was not fully understood due to its complicated operation characteristics. In this paper, the thermal performance of an OHP was experimentally studied. The condensation and evaporation temperature variations were monitored under different heat inputs and were then used to evaluate the OHP system operating characteristics. Thermal resistance was used as a key parameter to evaluate the thermal performance of the OHP system. The results indicated that as the heat input increased from 25 to 100 W, the average thermal resistance decreased while the stable evaporating and condensing temperatures increased. The equivalent heat transfer coefficient was derived theoretically. It showed that the reciprocal of the radial heat transfer coefficient increased with increasing liquid film thickness. Based on this result, an empirical correlation was proposed to evaluate the thermal resistance of an OHP system. This correlation was validated using both the experimental data provided in this study and the data collected from the open literature. The comparison results indicated that the proposed empirical correlation could reasonably predict the thermal resistance under different filling ratios and heat inputs.